Chery Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Co. has launched production of the new Jaguar XFL sedan, the first Jaguar model to be built in China.
The car, an extended version of the XF luxury sport sedan, will go on sale in China in the second half of the year.
The $2.7 billion (17.5 billion yuan) assembly plant, located in Changshu in east China's Jiangsu province, features a body shop that will produce the XFL's aluminum skin.
The company, a 50-50 partnership between Chery Automobile Co. and Jaguar Land Rover, claims the Changshu factory is the first assembly plant in China to produce an aluminum-bodied vehicle.
Covering an area of 48,400 square meters, the plant's body shop is fully automated, with 335 robots.
The Jaguar XFL's body will be 75 percent aluminum. By using aluminum alloys supplied by Novelis Inc., the vehicle will be 28 percent stiffer than the previous generation model.
Chery Jaguar Land Rover, established in 2012, also builds two Land Rover models: the Ranger Rover Evoque and the Discovery Sport.
In 2015, Jaguar Land Rover sold 92,474 vehicles in China, a drop of 24 percent from the previous year. The company has not released China sales figures for the first three months of 2016.
Source:Automotive News China